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The May 23 Sacramento Bee has this op-ed by Steve Maviglio, detailing how the California top-two system makes it easier for forces hostile to one major party to manipulate which member of that party qualifies for the November ballot.

The piece contains a typographical error, when it discusses the State Senate election in 2012 in Los Angeles County. Republican candidate Charlotte Svolos got 27% of the vote in the June primary, not 57%. Thanks to Mike Feinstein for the link.

There is an independent commission that draws the legislative lines in California now. Part of their mandate is to draw districts that are more competitive. Interestingly enough both the independent commission to draw the lines and to implement top two primary were ballot initiatives that were backed by the republicans. Funny how that worked out.

Proposition 14 was put on the ballot in February 2009 by the California legislature, but virtually all the Republican legislators voted “no.” And Democrats only voted for Prop. 14 being on the ballot because they were forced to do so by tnen-State Senator Abel Maldonado, who said he wouldn’t vote for the budget unless they did so.

It is laughable that “Democratic strategist” Steve Maviglio would suggest the result in Senate District 35 was a result of some sort of nefarious Top 2 trick. He is using Senator Wright’s criminal conviction to lead readers to conclude that everything wasn’t on the up and up. But Senator Wright’s conviction was for not living in his district when he was elected in 2008 under the old partisan primary scheme.

His current district has a 30% black citizen voting-age population (CVAP). Among Democratic voters this is to be even higher. The Republican, Charlotte Svolos, in the 3-way Open Primary in June received 27% of the total vote. She received 24% of the general election vote, which is line with California results, because Republicans voted in greater proportions in the primary. IOW, about 1/4 of the voters are Republicans and voted Republican in both elections.

The other 73% of the vote was split 57% for Wright and 17% for Paul Butterfield. What did “Democratic strategist” mean by Wright going all out in the primary? Of course, he realized that a certain share of the vote would go to the Republican candidate. So it makes sense to aggressively court Democrat voters in the primary, particularly black voters.

In the 2008 Democratic primary he won a 4-way race defeating Mervyn Dymally, who had been Jerry Brown’s Lieutenant Governor and served 12 years in Congress, but was 82-years old. Wright was claimed to have been the beneficiary of corporate dollars in that segregated Democratic primary. Wright defeated Dymally 44% to 35% with 21% for the remaining two candidates. He easily won election in the general election to defeat a Republican 72% to 28%.

Incidentally, a 2008 article raised the issue of Wright and Dymally living outside the district. Dymally’s wife owned a house in Ladera Heights, while Dymally claimed that he lived in a condo in Compton. Wright owned houses in Baldwin Hills and Inglewood, claiming the latter as his voting residence.

The end of the Op-Ed notes that “Maviglio is working for a campaign that is attacking Steve Glazer.”

The San Francisco Chronicle has endorsed Steve Glazer over Tim Sbranti. In its endorsement, it notes that Sbranti once headed California teachers union PAC; and that organized labor has dumped nearly one million into the campaign.

So I go to the California campaign expenditures web site and find that the Sbranti campaign has received and spent around $1/4 million, which considering that an assembly district has around 1/2 million persons is not too unreasonable.

Then I click on “Late Independent Expenditures Affecting This Candidate”, and I thought I had hit a slots jackpot as the $$$ $$$ $$$ for something called:

SBRANTI FOR ASSEMBLY 2014, SPONSORED BY THE CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION AND CALIFORNIA STATE COUNCIL OF SERVICE EMPLOYEES; CALIFORNIANS FOR ECONOMIC PROSPERITY TO SUPPORT TIM

Half of the expenditures of the this PAC are to support Sbranti, and the other half are to opposed Glazer in a 4-way race. The San Francisco Chronicle says that this “smear campaign against him has been as disingenuous as it is disgusting.”

The Sbranti campaign can be positive supporting coach, teacher, or mayor Sbranti, while a PAC led by the teachers union PAC that he once headed runs attack ads against his opponent day and night.

If Maviglio were working for the Sbranti campaign he would say so. But since he says he is working for a campaign “attacking Steve Glazer” it is clear who is paying him.

He writes an Op-Ed ostensibly about a government issue, but then throws in a dig against the candidate he is being hired to oppose.

Under the old system of segregated partisan primaries, labor unions could instruct their members how to vote, and otherwise differentially suppress voting by independents or other registered Democrats. They would then present their nominee as the Democrat candidate in the general election.

They liked the old system because they could manipulate and control it.

The commission was made up of fourteen people. Five Democrats, five republicans, and four unaffiliated. There is no evidence that the commission was rigged. Republicans did loose seats because of declining Republican registration, and the state’s changing demographics